Building a Fort

So Wednesday morning routine is to get Johnnie up and out of the apartment by 8:24. Why the odd time? Because the agreed time to drop Johnnie off at Lisa's house is 8:30 AM and I am usually on time. Not a dig at anyone, just the way I choose to operate with Lisa not that I'd get the same courtesy. The Wednesday drop-off is now the new normal, at least until Lisa goes back to work again and I'm actually ok with it although as fate would have it, the last couple of Wednesdays have not actually been all that busy. I just see it as an opportunity to get exercise in at lunchtime where I normall wouldn't get to when Johnnie is with me. And I pick him up early anyway to go to Panda Express night. I am clinging on to Panda Express night. Today the arrangements may be a little different because of the Build-a-Fort night scheduled for 7 PM tonight with Johnnie's class and I was the one that volunteered it to be at Lisa's house not only because her living room space is bigger, but also because I thought she'd want to see it and participate. She hasn't actually attended any Zoom meetings since they started. It's like she's afraid of the technology or something. Today she immediately asked me to pick up Johnnie earlier than usual. That would be because she has a piano lesson at 3:45 and far be it for me to refuse. In fact, I'm happy to pick him up early. That would ensure daddy-and-son Panda Express night before we have to go back to Lisa's house for Build-a-Fort. And so it was that I had a couple of not-so-important meetings today. But I did manage to get started on my steps early. I wanted to make sure I had 11,000 or close to it by the time we were back at Lisa's. After all, who knows when that is going to end and how close it would be to Johnnie's bedtime. And I got to 10,000 by right after lunch at that. The day went by pretty quickly and I was at Lisa's by 3 PM to pick up Johnnie. Lisa beat me to the punch actually. She called before then asking to come and go for a run with Johnnie and the dog. That would be a yellow flag, ESPECIALLY if she isn't coming along. That means Johnnie has gotten under her skin. Or something has. Mom and son met me with the dog right in the side gate and she handed him off telling me to go run with him for an hour. I get it that she has piano lessons. I get it that Johnnie wants to run with the dog. We ran around the block for a bit and then I realized that I needed to be back by 4 PM for my last meeting. And so we just dropped off Zucko the dog and took off. Lisa was perplexed why we were back so early. I wasn't going to explain anything. And then she said to go ahead and do the Build-a-fort thing at my house and she didn't need to be there. OK then. I guess she IS on overwhelm right about now. This is the time I knew not to even bother to say anything else. Off we went back to the apartment. Everyone is better off.

And so it was that we went home, I did my last meeting and then we did our usual Panda Express run. This time I got my iced tea pomegranate pineapple drink too. And then we built our fort. Turned out that the 2 benches from the dining table made EXCELLENT side supports. And with my queen size throw blanket over the top? Voila! We had a pretty good looking fort! Johnnie stuffed the inside with all the pillows I had. And took the technicolor-dream-coat throw as his blanket. Who needs Lisa's house?!! And then when the Zoom meeting started, we were one of the first ones on, that's how excited I was. I took a picture to send to Lisa. And it was Jodi, the new woman I've been talking to on Match that texted about how things were going. Heck she showed more interest than Lisa did sad to say. And so I texted her a picture too. Anyway I posted a video snippet of the Zoom session with Ms Gee reading a couple of books. And then she opened it up to the kids reading a couple of pages from their books. Johnnie picked Pete the Cat has the hiccups. How he remembered where I stashed that book I don't even know. But he did read. And I was so excited that he was really engaged. This event turned out to be pretty successful. And one that I'm going to remember. I was in such high vibration afterwards even though Johnnie sort of got discombobulated with the time and ran into the bathroom to take his shower when the event got done. It was only 8 PM. That's ok. Not a bad idea to get an early night's sleep. For me too. I could have called Jodi and talked some... but I decided I was going to have thie time, this moment alone Johnnie and I. It should have been shared with his mom but perfectly ok if she wasn't all that interested. Johnnie doesn't have to ever know. And so it was that I went to bed at barely 9 PM too tonight. It will help make up for the TV binging I'm sure to do this weekend LOL LOL. But it turned out to be a pretty good day.